San Diego added 15,715 residents between July 1, 2015, and June 30 of last year, the 10th largest numeric population increase in the country, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Thursday.
The increase raised San Diego's population at the beginning of this fiscal year to just over 1.4 million. That keeps the city as the eighth-largest in the U.S., behind San Antonio and ahead of Dallas, according to Census Bureau data.
The largest numeric increase was Phoenix, at 32,113, for a total population of 1.6 million, putting it fifth nationally.
Los Angeles added 27,173, the second-largest growth during the one-year span. LA's total population grew to 3.98 million.
Eight of the top 10 fastest-growing municipalities on a percentage basis were in Texas and the Deep South.
"Overall, cities in the South continue to grow at a faster rate than any other U.S region," said Amel Toukabri, a demographer in the Census Bureau's population division.
"Since the 2010 Census, the population in large southern cities grew by an average of 9.4 percent," Toukabri said. "In comparison, cities in the West grew 7.3 percent, while cities in the Northeast and Midwest had much lower growth rates at 1.8 percent and 3 percent respectively."
Four cities in the West — Bend, Oregon; Buckeye, Arizona; Lehi, Utah; and Meridian, Idaho — were among the top 15 fastest growing. The fastest growth in California was in Irvine, at 4 percent, which was 19th nationally.
In San Diego, it was San Marcos, at 2.8 percent — 54th in the U.S. — to 95,261 residents. No other San Diego-area cities were ranked in the top 100 in growth.
